Brand Building

I’m an avid Reddit user, 5 year club but who’s bragging? There are plenty of awesome examples of social media doing great things for a brand without them trying. The other day I came across this highly up-voted post about something one of the Kimpton Hotel’s did in response to a customer. With over 1250 comments so far and a few thousand votes, you know this is going to be seen by tens of thousands of people. I hope the person who replied from the Kimpton Hotel gets a little extra bonus next month because you just can’t ask for a better “strategy”.

I was expecting a lot more 2.0 humor and pizazz to come from Twitter’s commercial but it fell kind of flat for me. You’ve almost nabbed everyone in the tech/nerd/hipster sphere, and if you’re wanting to reach the broader audience, you’re going to have to do better than this! The communication power of Twitter is immense and down right useful, so I expect to see something more emotionally moving next time around.

This Seth Godin talk he did for one of his TED talks is a real gem and if you somehow missed it, then here it is. I’m a huge fan of his and our slogan kind of hints at that. While most people associate us with building links, we’re trying to change that in a big way. It all starts with an idea, and ultimately how you spread that idea to others. Seth Godin is a man you should listen to intently so check out this video and then all his other talks you can find on Youtube.

Since I’m a Toyota owner/lover/enthusiast (MR2 to be exact) I thought I’d deliver the latest commercial in a series Toyota has been doing. I grew up with a skateboard strapped to my feet as well, so this one featuring pro skater/entrepreneur/awesome guy Bob Burnquist caught my eye.

Foursquare just dropped the announcement that everyone can get their band pages up and running, and get up you should! Foursquare is still seeing a lot of growth due to a great idea, partnerships and a wicked platform. Brand pages allow for more user interaction and allows your fans get your updates and check-in deals via Twitter and Facebook as well…it’s just more streamlined and easier to take all in. While this won’t be for every business, those in the service industry should be jumping all over this right now.

Besides the benefits from a branding stand point, I wanted to let everyone know that you do get a few links out of it. This means a link to your homepage, as well as Twitter and Facebook! This type is a link is great in my books because it’s as natural as it gets, and you can only build the authority of you brand page. There are tons of great brands already on board like Tiffany & Co, NASA and Scanwhiches. I decided to take my favorite as an example so you can see what’s going on visually.

It’s no secret that most content/article marketing these days is dropping in quality at a rapid pace. This is surely not the case for a lot of content hubs out there, especially with InfoBarrel. By now I imagine most of our readers have heard of them, are using the site and or have planned to. While a lot of content farms got hit in the Google Panda update, Infobarrel keeps on thriving due to its strict content policy and quest for quality. This site is a gem among ugly ass stones my friends!

Why am I writing about the site again? Well they recently added a feature that will further their quality standards to new heights. If you’re citing a reference you can now implement the location as well as bibliography information. This is quite unique and super helpful for those serious writers looking to keep their content thriving in the SERPs.

This is the kind of good stuff all content hubs should have, but only the best of the best will adapt and continue to rank hard. You can choose from many different sources to attribute including books, encyclopaedia’s, magazines, newspapers, dictionaries, websites and reports. Linking out to credible sources is a must in my opinion, and this should really go to adding more authority to their site. If you’re not writing awesome content on here then you’re really missing out! Forget about the link benefit and go for the juicy traffic that you can score from their authority ranking power.

There are an endless stream of commercials out there, some good, some bad. Some are so bad that they’re amazing and that brings us to my commercial post of the day. My Spanish isn’t so hot, but Chip was kind enough to lay down the English words for this one of a kind computer store commercial. Thanks to Reddit and our marketing team, we hope to bring some more attention to Chip’s talents and his knack for the craziest tech gear south of the border!

Fiverr.com is a hot topic these days and it has inspired a whole niche of microjob sites in the process. I’ve been quite intrigued with the whole idea, and I’m always browsing Fiverr for the vast database of unique opportunities. You can get everything from video marketing, to advice and yes of course SEO. Now you all know that we deal in the more higher ending of link building, social media and branding. With that being said, I don’t recommend a lot of the “SEO” you’d find on here. It’s almost always not something the Google TOS would agree with, and that’s dangerous for big brands.

So what do I like? Well, the amount of unique little extras one can get for their brand here is quite interesting. We’ve been experimenting with an Ecommerce site of ours with a few of the following tactics listed below. The result? A whole bunch of content that has pushed our site to a new level of quality. There are all sorts of different marketing tactics to take from here, so snoop around and see what might work for your business. And hey, if it doesn’t then you’ve only wasted $5 bucks!

Marketing Tactic 1) QR Codes

These nifty little codes are all the rage and we wanted to have one to market our online shop with. For $5 you can have a custom one designed and sent back to you within 24 hours, just check out this post here or do a search for others offering the same service.

Marketing Tactic 2) Facebook Landing Page

If your brand doesn’t have a landing/intro page for your Facebook account by now then you’re missing out! We’ve been getting a lot of our clients to get this done as it looks way more professional. Looking good inspires confidence, and getting that for only $5 ain’t too bad neither! I had one landing page designed by this bloke, and it was well worth the price.

Marketing Tactic 3) Have Videos Made

Videos can be a pain in the ass sometimes, especially for an online brand where no one wants to get behind a camera. We’ve been experimenting with a few of the people who make videos with their puppets. You can use the highly recommended getting a commercial done by a puppet, or a real human who can pitch your website/brand/product. There are plenty of really unique options here folks….you can even get video effects done for $5!

Marketing Tactic 4) New Banners & Graphics

When’s the last time you had graphics, a logo or a new banner done out? There are a whole bunch of awesome designers, coders and ad copy people offering some great deals. Even if the banners are different from what you’re doing, live a little and switch it up because you never know what will happen.

Marketing Tactic 5) Writers & Song Writers

We recently had a bunch of songs, jingles and voice overs done for our Ecommerce website, and it all worked out quite well! Besides that, we’ve even outsourced some writing which has turned out better than expected. I’m sure a lot of you are sick of dealing with content writers, but for the easy stuff I say jump on Fiverr.

The New Paid Link?

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Negative SEO Attack?

Check out the anatomy of a "negative SEO" attack on our own site in our latest post. There's too much worry about these attacks happening, but I wouldn't worry too much about it. Come read what I think and just what to do if anything like this happens to your brand.